


Kiss This Guy

by aerialiste



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky plays the piano, Domestic Fluff, I Don't Even Know, I don't even go to this school, Like Literal Fluff, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve has an Apple Watch, Thanksgiving Dinner, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and mashed potatoes, as in sweet potato casserole, i tried okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 13:46:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerialiste/pseuds/aerialiste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The new next-door neighbor is turning Steve’s tidy, well-organized life upside down with his chaotic sleep schedule and all-night musical performances. But maybe Steve doesn’t really mind if things get a little bit messy?</p><p>In which Bucky Barnes exhibits piano-playing and invisible-rat-chasing behavior, followed by literal (marshmallow) fluff in the form of a Very Avengers Thanksgiving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss This Guy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [betts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/gifts).



He’d just finished climbing the last flight of stairs to his apartment and was fumbling in his inner shorts pocket for the key, out of breath, vision still fuzzy a little around the edges, when he heard Bucky Barnes for the first time.

Steve hadn’t met the new guy yet, but everyone else had, and they already had opinions, albeit opinions based on a single brief meeting during which he apparently hadn’t said anything.

“Barnes? Hard to miss. What you’d call striking. Long hair, wild eyes—looks like a cross between Brandon Lee and, I don’t know, Amanda Fucking Palmer,” Clint had said, one night out on the balcony, shaking his head in bewilderment and pinching out his joint before burying it in Steve’s basil plant; but since Steve had no idea who either of those people were, this meant nothing to him, other than he needed to provide Clint with an ashtray next time they ordered in pizza.

Clint was a good neighbor, though, and they all lived in a good co-op, hallway wallpaper frayed yet floorboards solid, a respectable brownstone with three stories, a good dry basement with an oil heater and coinless washing machines, and a rooftop that was too hot in summer except for drying laundry on clotheslines they’d made out of electrical cord, and too cold in winter for anything.

Steve had occupied his half of the third floor for so many years of his post-service life he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. He’d been one of the original co-op owners, after he was demobilized: had ripped away crumbling sheetrock with a crowbar to expose the original brick beneath, polished the little scalloped brass plates under everyone’s doorbells, and helped draw up the first set of by-laws to organize the residents and make their building a functional small civilization unto itself.

Steve Rogers liked order. He liked waking early, making slow-pour coffee exactly the same way every day, and reading the national and world sections of the Times before walking to work at 8 am. He fed his aquarium fish every other day and watered the orchids once a week, fertilized them once a month, and made sure they had enough light coming in through the frosted-glass bathroom window.

Steve went running on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays he and Sam met at the gym. Sundays were for the arts section, whatever novel he’d started reading, and exactly one double espresso at Mojo Coffee across the street. 

Today was a Thursday, so Steve had run his usual 5K. All he really knew about the new guy was that his last name was Barnes, he apparently spoke fluent Russian, Pashto, and Farsi, and he had a cat. Steve wasn’t sure how he felt about cats.

He’d been out of town on his annual vacation in October when the VA made the new guy’s arrangements with Nat, who hadn’t given up much info when Steve got home and found out the super-quiet blonde girl next door to him, Sharon, had actually still been working for the NSA, and had been suddenly reassigned to DC.

“Guy’s name is Barnes. I only met him the once but, you know. Still pretty punchy.”

It was the first really cold day they’d had, and Nat had invited herself up for Saturday coffee, which Steve permitted because she’d held up a paper bag which he knew contained chocolate pinguinos from their favorite panadería. (He let himself have them only if Nat brought them, and she knew better than to abuse the privilege.)

Natasha had lived in the co-op almost as long as Steve. She raised her eyebrows at his vacation tan and sun-bleached hair, but managed not to tease him about it, or about what and/or who he’d done in Florida.

“I still can’t believe you all just accepted him straight out of the VA hospital and didn’t even interview him. Where did he serve?”

“Jesus, Rogers, I don’t remember,” she’d said, scuffing at his kitchen island with one small booted foot. (It always amazed him, how small Natasha actually was, when she could fill the room with her entire presence. He occasionally had to remind himself that the top of her head only just came up to his collarbone.) “Special Forces is all I know—Chechen Republic, maybe? Georgia...Paktika?”

Steve listened, foaming vanilla soy milk for her hypocritical latte (the pinguinos were filled with whipped cream). It wasn’t like her to be so elliptical, to have missed so much.

“His Russian is weird. Old-fashioned,” she said abruptly, still not looking at Steve. “Sounds like my grandma when he does talk, which, he doesn’t say much. Has a prosthetic left arm, and the thousand-yard stare to go with it. Pretty mouth, though. Almost delicate. But just…you know how they are, at first. He’s a little rougher than most.”

The apartment next to Steve’s, the co-op had decided long ago, would always be held for someone needing a leg up after their service to the country. It had been there for Sam when he needed it after Kabul, just to pull himself together and adapt to civilian life, a year to get used to waking up to a cellphone alarm rather than tracer fire.

And Steve himself had needed it, at one point (stripping the floors, scrubbing them with steel wool dipped in orange oil, methodical, meticulous, controlling the few things he could control), after a series of missions he still couldn’t talk about, could barely think about even now, after all this time, when he woke up sweating and pinned to the bed, not sure where he was, feeling walls and ceiling and floor closing in on him, stifled and gasping for air.

Nat always knew somehow. Those were the mornings she left one of her purple post-its on his door, telling him (she wasn’t really the asking type) she and Clint would meet him after work at the Rose Garden, the local Polish bar, still run by the same family that had opened it just after Prohibition. They only served light beer, and only by the pitcher.

Steve was better, though. They hadn’t dragged him to the Rose Garden since he’d gotten back from Key West on the first of November.

And he was usually good with the new people, which was why he took the apartment next to them. Steve had an ability: could somehow radiate calm and security, project it outward until the nerviest and most high-strung of them would eventually, slowly, drop their guard.

He knew all too well the headspace this guy had to be in. And in fact, was in right now, if the sounds he was hearing were any indication.

Steve stood frozen with key halfway in the deadbolt, listening, trying to make sense out of the noises. A—thwacking sound? Over and over, but irregularly, like someone trying to—punch something? and angry shouting, maybe a heavy bag, or—was he fighting with someone—

—the door flew open and a frantic-looking face emerged, framed by shoulder-length dark hair, dishevelled. Steve just had time to register that this must be the new guy when Barnes, shouting in rapid-fire Russian the entire time, looked straight at him and let out a string of what Steve was pretty sure were not words that Natasha’s grandmother would have used. (On the other hand…who knew.)

"[Здравствуйте,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430)” Steve said automatically, leaving his key in the lock and holding up both hands in what he hoped was a nonthreatening gesture, suddenly painfully aware he was wearing only flimsy nylon running shorts and a ratty t-shirt. “[Здесь…немного…шумно?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430)”

“Yeah? Well, that’s cause of you guys got _rats_ , in the _walls_ , of your fucking _building_ ,” his neighbor bit out, in a surprisingly thick Brooklyn accent. Steve realized Barnes was holding a broom handle pointed at him as if it were a rifle, red bristles tucked under one armpit, looking up and down the hall wildly. He was too thin and too pale, with circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.

That was probably, Steve figured, because he hadn’t.

Barnes darted back into his apartment, leaving the door ajar, and Steve heard several more, increasingly violent if fruitless, thwacks and more cursing. He opened his own door in time to see the framed artwork on his side of their shared wall bouncing dangerously up and down as Barnes pursued invisible rats, audible only to himself.

Barnes’s contumely grew louder and simultaneously less Russian, and Steve didn’t speak whatever that was, didn’t know his rank or even his first name or how to settle him. This could be bad. He approached Barnes’s open door with caution, hands held palm out, visibly empty.

Inside, the formerly tidy studio of Sharon Carter had been visited by some natural catastrophe. Steve’s eyes couldn’t make sense of what he saw, mostly because the blinds were closed and the curtains drawn, but he got a vague impression of floor space covered in papers, books, art canvases, more papers, more books, more canvases, takeout containers, and, for good measure, a few more books and piles of paper and canvases, as well as a sort of general slatternly domestic chaos. And a bicycle with one wheel.

Steve remained in the doorway, uncertain as to what he should say, while Barnes slammed the broom bristles against the wall with increasing desperation. He finally drew himself up to attention and settled on a brisk confident: “As you were, soldier!”

Barnes froze, one foot poised on top of what looked like a piano bench. Steve frowned; he guessed for some reason Sharon hadn’t been able to take her mom’s old upright with her.

Then in one smooth movement Barnes stood down, dropping the broomstick into at-ease and turning to face Steve, who cleared his throat awkwardly. He didn’t really have a follow-up move planned.

Barnes tilted his face sideways a little, looking up through his eyelashes, and Steve saw his cheekbones were flushed red, and his lips were (the word came to him unbidden) gorgeous. He took an involuntary step backward.

“Soldier. [Зимний Солдат](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430),” Barnes said, more quietly. “That’s me alright. Just another fucking soldier, another stupid grunt built to spill.”

Steve let out the breath he’d been holding. “Well, we’ve all been there. Most of us in this building, anyway. Okay, maybe just me and Nat. And Clint. But it’s okay. And I promise, there aren’t any rats.”

Barnes narrowed his eyes at Steve. “Lemme tell _you_ something, buster. I grew up with fucking rats, okay, and I know what the fuck they sound like, and _you_ people got _rats_ in your walls.”

Steve’s vision, now more accustomed to the gloom, could pick out the edges of the piano, and a medium-sized gray tabby perched on top of it, eyes wide and reflecting uneasy green in the hallway light.

“Wouldn’t your, um, wouldn’t your cat tell you if there were rats?” he asked, backing out of the doorway a little, not wanting to seem curious. He was suddenly extremely curious.

Now he could see a mattress flung up against one window, as if to block out more light, and no other furniture of any kind besides the piano. Where was Barnes sleeping? Was he sleeping?

“Not my fucking cat,” said Barnes succinctly, and then, before Steve knew what was happening, the door was summarily closed in his face, and he heard the snick of the deadbolt and what sounded like Barnes throwing the broom across the room, it clattering against the floor.

He sighed, scrubbed his hand through his still-sweaty hair, and went back to his own apartment. Three framed pieces had been knocked off the walls; two had landed fortuitously among the sofa cushions, but one of the watercolors was facedown on the floor and its glass had smashed. Steve got out his own broom and dustpan, thinking.

He needed more intel. Fortunately, he knew how to get it.

•

“Go away, Rogers,” Tony had said, not looking up from where he seemed to be soldering something tiny to something even tinier.

Steve stood there, patient. He knew it sometimes took Tony a while to remember about people, because he was so fascinated by objects. It was thanks to Tony’s mechanical genius, though (and his poorly hidden compassion and kindness), that the brownstone had a working antique elevator and a radiator system that functioned flawlessly even when the city was locked in one of its endless ice storms.

Tony Stark installed high-efficiency window units every summer, and took them down and put in double-glazing every winter. He’d figured out every password in a six-block radius, so none of them had to pay for wifi, and also obtained cable for them in a manner everyone had the sense not to question. He was the best super a building without a super could have. Steve really didn’t mind waiting.

After about twenty minutes, Tony yanked off his visor and looked around vaguely, pointing in the air as if he were talking to himself. “What exactly _is_ a circuit board anyway? Alternating current, non-conducting substrate—but do we know _how_ it really works? Do you know anything about circuit boards?”

“No,” said Steve truthfully. “Tell me about Barnes.”

Eventually circuitry lost enough interest for Tony to notice Steve standing there. “Barnes, huh? If you want to know about the cute new boy at school, why don’t you just ask him out for sodas?”

“I’m going to take away your soldering iron,” Steve warned.

“If I tell you, will you beat it? Literally or not, that’s up to you.” Tony sighed theatrically. “Barnes, James Buchanan. Date of birth 20 March 1985, Mount Sinai Hospital, enlisted straight out of unremarkable public high school, tested straight out of boot camp to language school, promoted out of language school to Special Forces, nine tours 2004–2014, honorable discharge probably concealing something scary and coup-related and if he told you what it was he’d have to kill you. Which could put a crimp on any soda-related outings. Has enough medals we could melt them down and start our own mint. Also troubled by a slight mental health condition, or several; nothing to mention, really.” Tony was about to lower his visor again when Steve caught his wrist in an easy grip.

“Wait. What do you mean, slight?”

Tony rolled his eyes, importuning the gods for strength to bear Steve’s interruptions. “Just your average mentally interesting assassin.”

Steve didn’t let go.

“Okay, fine—he has seven separate diagnoses, more or less, not counting the traditional Axis II diagnosis deferred; but without going into excessive clinical detail, I’d say in this case standard-issue PTSD is actually the _least_ of your problems, unless—”

Suddenly, for the first time since he’d knocked on his door, Steve had Tony's full attention. Having it directly on him was unsettling, like being drawn into the radius of a small but extremely powerful solar flare.

“What did he do,” Tony said, eyes bright with interest.

“Nothing yet, really,” Steve admitted. “But he seems…like Nat said. Worse than most of us, after we’re demobbed.” He didn’t mention the lack of furniture or the invisible rats or the broomstick rifle. Or the appealing flush across Barnes’s cheeks. Or his lips.

Tony stared at him for one of those unending moments, face expressionless.

“You’re not so bad-looking yourself, Rogers,” he said, inexplicably, pulling his wrist free and turning back to his workbench. “I’m sure you’ve got this one under control. Just don’t complain about the noise.”

•

Steve understood this last part a few hours later, when, as he was making his nightly pasta salad (rotini, zucchini, tomatoes, fresh basil), Barnes assaulted the piano.

There was no other verb for it; he drew sounds out of the instrument that Steve hadn’t realized a piano could make. Wailing, clanging, metallic, violent sounds, as if Barnes were somehow playing it with a set of cutlery or broken glass. The music, if you could call it that, had its own uncanny beauty, Steve mused, julienning the tomatoes and then turning the strips sideways to mince them. The harshness and atonality suited Barnes, as if the piano itself hadn’t had enough sleep, or were trying to speak more than one language at a time.

Snatches of classical piano that Steve could almost recognize wove in between melodies and arrangements he’d never heard before. He’d just paused to listen, drifting closer toward the wall, when an angry-sounding series of thumps and clonks ended in one terrific crash and then resounding silence, Barnes having slammed down the piano lid.

Steve wondered, then, about the prosthetic. He hadn’t even noticed it during the invisible-rats episode, but he spent so much time around veterans he’d grown accustomed to all manner of assisted mobility devices and they hardly even registered.

He settled into his usual corner of the sofa with dinner and pulled the remote out of its hanging pocket, thinking he’d catch up on _How to Get Away with Murder_. Somehow he wasn’t surprised by the furious hammering at the door.

He put his bowl in the fridge as he walked through the kitchen, unlooping the chain and opening the door all the way, with some vague instinct that he should show trust.

Barnes stood there clenching and unclenching his fists, visibly outraged about something, bare-footed and hair flying around his face. Thin grey sweatpants hung off his hips, and his green VA hospital scrub top had what Steve recognized as paint stains, oil pigment in every color of the rainbow.

This time, Steve also noted Barnes’s left arm: some kind of metallic polymer. Not designed with any effort toward blending in or seeming life-like, but for some other purpose. _Sniper_ , Nat had said. _Assassin_ , added Tony.

Steve suddenly felt chilled, and a little angry, at whom he didn’t know.

“Hey there, neighbor,” he said, attempting something that for him approximated humor, and then wincing inside as Barnes met his eyes, looking livid and confused and all but hunted. _Go easy_ , Nat had said.

“I’m Steve Rogers,” he said, offering his hand, “and you—you’re James, right? Is everything okay?”

Barnes ignored his hand. “[Мне нужно потренироваться,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430)” he informed Steve, who had no idea what that meant. “[Нравится?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430)” They stared at each other for a long moment, with Steve not sure if he should answer yes or no; and then Barnes seemed to give up, and turned to go.

To his surprise, Steve blurted out, “Wait a second.” He racked his brain for any Russian he knew but could only come up with an extremely dirty joke involving a tsar, a Cossack, and a Stalinist that Nat had taught him when they first met.

Then he remembered that Barnes, despite his exotic appearance and behavior, was just another Brooklyn kid, and he could treat him like any other wacky trouble-causing neighbor. Yelling was certainly appropriate, under the circumstances. Also gesturing rudely.

A compromise, maybe. His posture shifted.

“Come on, Barnes, don’t be that way. What’s eating ya—got some kinda problem?”

He was a little startled by how quickly his old voice came back, as he shifted his weight onto his hips, crossed his arms and slouched a little. No one knew that Steve. He didn’t even know that Steve, anymore.

“Don’t _be_ that way?” Barnes threw back at him immediately, rounding on him and getting all up in Steve’s grill. “What way, huh? What way am I _being_? I got a problem alright, I got a problem with _you_.”

Steve had to fight not to start laughing, but he stayed in character. And Barnes’s eyes weren’t brown, as he’d thought initially, but really, really blue—almost as deep blue as the paint stains on his scrubs top.

Steve kept his expression stoic. “Okay then, spill. Whaddya want.”

Barnes pushed his face right up into Steve’s, so close Steve could feel his breath against Steve’s lips—no alcohol, to Steve’s relief, just soft puffs of air punctuating his words. “The patient exhibits rat-chasing behavior. The patient exhibits painting behavior. The patient exhibits writing behavior. The patient,” he concluded with an air of triumph, as Steve stared at him uncomprehending, “exhibits piano-playing behavior.”

Steve blinked. Neither one of them spoke for a beat. Then Steve shrugged, easy. “Okay by me, James. You wanna play piano, play piano—no skin off my nose. Play bloody murder if it helps.”

Barnes’s eyes narrowed, considering this; and Steve stole a glance down at those lips. They were as pretty as Nat had suggested and he didn’t need to be thinking about that right now, or the hollow of his throat, working as he thought.

“The data suggests that at times the patient can be irritable and petulant,” he countered.

Steve laughed shortly. “Yeah, well, I get that. You probably got your reasons for both.”

“[Хорошо](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430),” said Barnes, raking a hand through his hair, which immediately fell back down into his face. “Noise keeps the goddamn rats away.”

“James, there really aren’t any rats,” Steve ventured. “The wall between us is solid brick, there’s nowhere for rats to go.”

Barnes spun on his heel and headed back for his place in a huff. Just before the door slammed, though, Steve heard him say, softly, as if he didn’t want to be heard, “Who the hell is James? [Меня зовут](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430) Bucky.”

•

Bucky’s piano-playing behavior continued.

It continued late into the night, and on into the early morning, and when Steve came home exhausted from work at 5:15 the piano-playing behavior was still an ongoing thing that was happening. It had started to feel like it was happening _at_ him, rather than just near him.

 _Help,_ he texted Nat.

_what now_

I seem to be living next door to Prokofiev. But he says his name is Bucky.

 _youre so goddamn classy steve_  
_how do you know prokofiev from rachmaninoff_

The same way you do, apparently. By the way, he’s now playing Ravel.

 _the lefthand stuff right_  
_for that philosophers brother_  
_wittgenstein_

And here I thought you only ever listened to Pussy Riot and Hole.

 _f u rogers_  
_anyway it makes sense_  
_who the hell goes by bucky_

_brb its clint_

Steve huffed a laugh and put his phone down on the counter; “brb” in this case meant after several hours and/or possibly tomorrow morning.

After demolishing the Rachmaninoff several times, with a few dozen key changes and major-minor shifts, the piano softened, drew its sounds out like a violin, and Steve found himself leaning in exhaustion with his ear against the wall, just listening, half-asleep; so that it caught him by surprise when he heard a soft hoarse voice singing. Bucky’s voice.

Февраль. Достать чернил и плакать!  
Писать о феврале навзрыд,  
Пока грохочущая слякоть  
Весною черною горит.

 _fevrale dostat chernil i plakat_  
_pisat o fevrale navzryd_  
_poka grohochushaya slyakot_  
_vesnoyu charnoyu gorit_

Steve closed his eyes. He didn’t catch all the words, only something about February and darkness, winter melting into spring. That, he understood. Bucky’s voice was low, sweet and sounded a little rusty, like a metal pipe through which water hadn’t come in a long time.

Steve’s chest hurt. This was ridiculous. He wanted to ask James Buchanan Barnes out for a soda, which was going to be problematic as James Buchanan Barnes apparently didn’t sleep, change clothes, eat, drink, or, most importantly, ever leave his apartment.

When he woke late the next morning, the piano had gone silent. There wasn’t a single sound from Bucky’s apartment for the next sixteen hours (not that Steve was paying attention). Then, just as he was getting ready to go to bed, Steve heard some broom-thwacking and Slavic cursing, but not much; and then the shower, which ran for a long, long time.

Should he get an exterminator? Maybe there really were rodents of some kind; Bucky was hearing _something_. 

_Humane mousetrap,_ he typed on his Apple Watch before falling asleep.

•

He didn’t catch anything in the humane mousetrap, which was a relief. He’d put half a Reese’s cup in it, and, upon reflection, folded up the package and left the other Reese’s cup outside Bucky’s door. It vanished after a few hours without comment. Maybe Bucky was a mouse.

A couple of pianoless days passed, and then early one morning, there was more ferocious knocking on his door. Steve stumbled out of bed still in t-shirt and boxers, not fully conscious and half-expecting Nat with a paper bag of pinguinos.

Instead there was Bucky, holding two paper cups of coffee, his scrubs smeared with yet more fresh paint, and a long blue-green streak in his hair and stretching across half his forehead. “Morning,” he said, a little hesitant, as if practicing the word. Steve smiled, or hoped that’s what his face was doing, since he wasn’t in full control of it yet.

“You brought coffee,” he managed, and Bucky nodded, and handed him one.

“Figured I owed ya,” he said, “due to all the…the ruckus,” and he tried to smile back, but only one half of his face made it there.

Steve felt something slip and melt inside him.

“Come on in, I’ll make some breakfast,” he offered; but Bucky had already turned away and shut his door, and Steve was left blinking and holding what turned out to be an appalling burnt cup of Seven-11 urn coffee that he had to pour down the drain.

•

This went on for days: Bucky being awake for 24-36 hour periods, with concomitant rat-chasing, piano activity, and long polyglot monologues which Steve was guessing accompanied furious action-painting behavior. Bucky would then collapse for 12-14 hours, wake up and shower, and start the cycle again.

Steve didn’t know if Bucky even knew about the basement and the washing machines, or where the trash and recycling bins were. He didn’t know if he was eating anything besides takeout, or leaving the apartment, or if he needed company, or to be left alone. The list of stuff Steve Rogers didn’t know about Bucky was, in fact, innumerable.

Nat both egged on Steve’s curiosity and cautioned him against trying to draw Barnes out of his shell too quickly. Where “drawing him out of his shell” meant…maybe something else, something he wasn’t ready to admit to, quite yet.

Steve saved his pinguino and left it outside Bucky’s door, and Natasha shook her head over this.

"[Ты спятил](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430)," she said, disbelieving. "[Так не бывает](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430)."

Steve thought this was probably accurate, and it was funny that Bucky was supposed to be the crazy one. Steve just had his crazy contained in a different form, one sponsored by matching table linens and a small obsession with indirect lighting. As well as curling fifty-pound dumbbells exactly ten times on both sides, three days a week.

Later he texted Nat about whether he should, in fact, ask Bucky out.

 _steve be real_  
_u need this guy like u need a new orifice_

Just imagine how useful another orifice could be, though.

 _oh god why did u make me think that_  
_gross_ _u r the gayest thing south of soho_

I don’t have *designs* on his *virtue,* Natasha, I just want to help him feel at home. Maybe I should send Sam over to talk to him.

 _yeah well you already would have_  
_except you clearly have designs on his virtue_

_btw no one but old people uses asterisks anymore_

Steve didn’t dignify that with a response. He also didn’t ask Sam to check on Bucky. Not yet. Soon, though. Some VA meetings might help, and, like Steve, Sam also had a way with the skittish and the battle-shocked.

And Sam also probably wouldn’t press himself against the brick wall for up to an hour at a time, listening to Bucky play shards of Chopin and Bartók and what sounded quite a bit like “Foxy Lady,” listening to the piano veer towards and then away from those songs into its own language, listening to it shriek and sob and moan, sounding strangled and wild, like something between an orgasm and a cry for help.

•

Finally, Steve gave up and wrote a note on a yellow legal pad, tore it off, and slid it under Bucky’s door. He’d sat for a long time at his kitchen island, coffee cooling, trying to figure out what to say.

 _Dear Bucky, I was_  
_Hi neightbor! just_  
_Hey, it’s your neighbor St_  
_Hello Bucky—it’s Steve, your new_  
_Just wondering if_

Eventually he’d abandoned the idea of a salutation and went with initials:

_B—_

_Dinner’s at 7 if you want to come over. Nothing fancy, just pasta._

_—S_

He hoped the casual brevity conveyed that Bucky didn’t have to change clothes or in any way alter his bearing, hairstyle, or foreign-language-speaking behaviors.

Which is why he was stunned when Bucky showed up at 6:55 carrying a demi-bouteille of Côtes du Rhône and wearing what looked like clean black jeans and a gray t-shirt with a black button-down thrown on over it—so stunned he stood there in his own doorway with rolled-up sleeves, a half-trimmed artichoke in one hand, forgetting to invite him inside.

Bucky smiled at him, tentative, and turned the bottle so he could see the label. “Dunno if you drink? I don’t, so I got the half-bottle, like a chump.”

Steve laughed at that, then, and opened the door wide, catching a whiff of some forest-scented aftershave as Bucky went past him; maybe cedar, maybe lime. When freshly washed, Bucky’s hair curled a little bit at the ends, and looked silky and tempting. Steve reminded himself these features of his new neighbor were not important.

It got harder to remember when they were both sprawled on Steve’s area rug after dinner, eating cheese and olives off a wooden cutting board and arguing about the Dodgers, the crappy high school they’d both gone to (but separated by four years, only having certain squareheaded enemies in common), the next city council election, _Aliens_ versus _Prometheus_ , Tom Hardy versus Dwayne Johnson, and whether the Sacagawea coin should permanently replace the dollar bill.

(Bucky was staunchly pro-paper promissory notes; Steve felt the dollar had so deflated in monetary value as to deserve only coin status, like the quarter; “and besides, Buck, every single other country in the world uses a coin as their primary unit of currency.” He wasn’t sure when _Bucky_ had turned to _Buck_ but it was probably between the first and second glass of Côtes du Rhône, because Steve wasn’t much of a drinker. This also maybe explained why he was lying stomach-down on the carpet, half under the coffee table.)

“You’re a weirdo, Rogers,” Bucky informed him, wedging a sofa pillow under his head, lying back, and trying to toss olives into his mouth. He hardly ever missed, but when he did, he had to go diving under the sofa to retrieve them as they rolled away.

“Says you,” was Steve’s sapient comeback; he wanted to make a joke about olive-tossing behavior but wasn’t drunk enough for that, or sure that Bucky wouldn’t take it amiss. There was a long pause during which he tried to think of an opening gambit along the lines of: _where did you serve, what happened there, how did you lose your arm, do you think you might ever be interested in making out with me_.

While he stalled between these options, Bucky rolled over to his side and held himself up on one elbow, looking at Steve out from underneath those eyelashes again. “Sevastopol. Stationed in the Ukraine just before the annexation, but went to Crimea undercover as part of Putin’s ghost army—the polite people. News flash, we weren’t actually all that polite. That’s when I lost my hand. Well, whole arm.”

Any part of that would qualify as now-he’ll-have-to-kill-you intel, based on Tony’s heuristic. Steve tried to sit up to pay attention, but could only get as far as propping his chin on his fists. Bucky laughed.

“Two glasses and you’re a goner. That is just shit-sad, Rogers.”

“I admit this,” Steve said. “But, my inebriation also means I can listen without interrupting every other word. I mean, if you want to talk about it. If you don’t that’s fine too.”

Bucky bit his lower lip, uncertain, then released it, and Steve had to close his eyes for a second. “I used to want to be a classical pianist. Can you believe it? Kid come up from Hell’s Kitchen—even with both hands, I was never any fuckin’ good.”

Steve doubted that. He wanted to know more, wanted to know anything Bucky would tell him, but took a sideways tack. “You said your cat couldn’t hear the rats?”

Bucky snorted. “No, I said it wasn’t my fucking cat. I don’t know where it came from. There when I moved in. I thought it was yours.”

“God no,” said Steve. “I can barely keep my tropical fish alive.”

Bucky grinned at him, and yes, those were dimples. “You got fish? This I have to see.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” Steve protested; but then Bucky was hauling him up by one arm so Steve headed them toward his bedroom, flicking on the light as they lurched through the door.

“There she blows,” he said, pointing to the aquarium, backlit in black light. Floating near the center was a single neon-blue striped cichlid, with jagged fins and—Steve always imagined—an aloof, haughty look about her, which is why he privately referred to her as either the Dowager Countess or Professor McGonagall, depending.

Bucky collapsed on the bed laughing, hanging onto Steve’s shirt; Steve sprinkled a few algae flakes for her ladyship before allowing himself to be tugged backward, flopped on the bed with his back turned to Bucky, which he thought seemed wisest, all else considered.

“Okay, first of all—you said fish, but you just got the one?”

“ _Fishes_ is both singular and plural. _Fish_ is, I mean,” Steve said, with what he thought was dignity, but the letter S was more difficult to pronounce than usual.

“And next,” said Bucky, continuing to pluck at the back of his shirt, “The thing’s right by the damn bed, don’t it keep you up at night?”

“What, the light?” Steve blinked at it owlishly; it was a soft violet he’d always found soothing, especially when he woke confused and terrified. “No, it’s good. Better than pitch-dark, Bucky—you should try it. You wake up not knowing where you are, and the light—”

Steve shifted around in mid-sentence to find Bucky’s face was about three inches from his, eyes wide and clear in the aquarium’s glow. There wasn’t enough air in his lungs and there was too much saliva in his mouth. Steve didn’t know what to do about either.

“You’re maybe a weirdo, Rogers,” Bucky murmured, not dropping his gaze, “but you’re kinda cute about your fishes singular.”

Steve sucked in a breath, feeling his face flush, holding perfectly still.

“Fishes singular got a name?” Bucky husked, letting go of Steve’s shirt and hooking his fingers in Steve’s belt loops. Steve closed his eyes and prayed for strength.

 _You are US Army Captain Steven Grant Rogers, Retired_ , he told himself firmly, _and you do not hit on the new guy._ Especially when said new guy is still reeling from god knows what kind of combat hell—

“Her name’s Ripley,” he said, extricating himself and standing up again, backing away a couple of steps; but still close enough to see Bucky’s face shut down.

“Right, got it,” Bucky said, rolling off the other side of the bed and heading for the door. “Time to bounce, James Buchanan Barnes. Strategic retreat. Patient exhibits flirting behavior. Unwanted; fall back.”

“Bucky,—Bucky, wait,” Steve began, but Barnes had already fled with uncanny speed, leaving only an empty half-bottle and a couple of olives on the floor.

Steve sagged against the kitchen island, hands over his face, perplexed and still tipsy. Half of him wanted to drag Bucky back by his pretty long hair and press him, yielding, into the duvet. The other half worried about what he might have set off in Bucky’s psyche because of some perceived rejection. “You could come back,” he whispered into his hands. “[Мне было хорошо с тобой](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430).”

Eventually he crawled, still fully clothed, in between his snowy white feather duvet and 800-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, and dreamt of nothing, not even Bucky.

It wasn’t until the next morning that Steve, standing bleary and hunched over the kitchen sink draining a glass of tap water, noticed his entire wooden knife block—eight slots—was empty of all its knives.

•

“Open the fuck up, Barnes!” shouted Nat, pounding at the door. “Don’t make me kick this shit in because you _know_ I will.”

Steve stood beside her, arms loose at his sides, ready for whatever. Nat paused to listen. From the bottom of the door they heard scrabbling and mewing. “I don’t like this,” muttered Nat, before kicking at the base threateningly. “Beat it, cat, we’re coming in. You do it, Steve; you’re more top-heavy, you grain-fed son of the heartland.”

He was too worried to remind her that he was from Brooklyn, just set his mouth and kicked in the knob plate (not even regretting that they’d have to replace it with something newer).

Instead of the total darkness he was expecting, though, the little studio apartment was filled with light. Canvases crowded every wall, ripped apart and sewn back together into wholeness, covered with thick globs and trowelings of paint, scribbled-on papers stitched into the thick impasto, a palimpsest of half-visible words beneath the color.

And Bucky was silhouetted against the open windows, ignoring gravity, systematically twisting and winding, his shirtless body melodic like a phrase of music, like a curved bass clef symbol, like a liquid, moving through the knife exercise as if it were made for children.

With one of Steve’s most lethally sharp fine-boning knives.

As they watched he doubled his speed, the prosthetic not slowing him down at all as far as Steve could see, only making a slight pinging sound whenever Bucky tossed the knife from one hand to the other.

Nat blew out a breath. “Oh, okay. As long as he’s only training to murder _other_ people and not himself, that’s fine by me.” She turned to go, ordering over her shoulder: “Someone feed the damn cat something besides takeout.”

Steve leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, to watch; he couldn’t take his eyes off his neighbor. He’d thought that weekly sparring with Sam kept him in shape, but Bucky was something else: he flipped and spun the blade casually, as if it were a scarf or ring and he a magician, about to make a dove disappear.

When the double-time series came to an end, Steve didn’t know whether he should clap or run for his life. Bucky solved the problem by grinning over at him, slinging sweat off his forehead and out of his eyes with his right hand.

“Feels good,” he said, barely out of breath. “You should try it.”

“I like all my body parts, thanks,” Steve said without thinking.

Bucky barked a laugh and balanced the boning knife in the center of his prosthetic palm. “That’s what _she_ said.”

Steve flinched. “Sorry, that wasn’t exactly…sensitive.”

Bucky blotted at his face and chest with a towel, quirked an eyebrow. “Yeah, well, you mighta noticed I’m not really the sensitive type, so.”

“Right,” said Steve, thoughtful; and suddenly he started to get it: the mess of contradictions, the piano music at 4 a.m. that alternated between lyrical and violent, the Brooklyn drawl and the knife-ballet and the Prokofiev and the canvases brimming not just with color and line but seething with emotion. “I’m sure all the _best_ close-quarters knife-fighters play Chopin like they’re lovesick young Werther.”

Bucky’s eyes flashed as he took a step toward Steve, then another, snapping his towel at the cat, who scuttled under the piano bench, hissing.

“You don’t know shit about me, Rogers,” he said, eyes huge, and Steve could see a faint trembling in his hands. “No one does. And no one ever can. Patient’s kill-count top secret. Patient lies and dissembles. Patient can be petulant, patient displays knife-fighting behavior.”

Steve didn’t back down. “Patient displays _human behavior_ , Buck.”

Bucky turned around, unable to look at him, skin red and angry around the socket where his prosthetic apparently attached to the stump of humerus underneath. _Exoprosthesis,_ Steve’s mind supplied. _Expensive. Rarely implemented. Only for a a seriously useful field asset._ He continued, voice quiet.

“Patient is a good man who’s been through fucking hell and back and is worn down to the bone, and if patient doesn’t start sleeping through the night instead of doing drills, neighbor is going to tackle patient like a sack of potatoes and hit him over the back of the head with a sap. Or a bottle of Klonopin. I mean, whatever works.”

Here Steve saw one of Bucky’s shoulders jerk, and then the other. He was laughing. “Stevie,” he said, “I get it. You mean well. But you got no idea.”

“Really?” said Steve. “Really. You think I worked a desk for seven tours? Well, fuck you. I got more blood on my hands than you ever seen.” _Some of it mine_ , he didn’t add. Bucky didn’t need to know that, didn’t need to know why Nat was so antsy about the knife set, or that Steve had only gotten comfortable with having sharp things in his apartment in the last year or so.

He forced himself to speak calmly. “We got a guy coming later today to talk to you, Buck. Name’s Sam Wilson. Since your door’s busted you might as well let him in. Also, if you don’t, I’m siccing Nat on you.”

Steve paused at the entrance, then turned around. “One more thing: dinner’s at 7. Chicken puttanesca, and _Prometheus_ if you’re lucky.”

He stood for a long time outside his place, head resting on the door. What was he doing. Why was he doing it. And, did he have time (he consulted his Apple Watch) to pick up tiramisú after work.

•

“What are you doing,” said Clint, voice flat, leaning against the counter and stealing a forkful of tiramisú before Steve, exasperated, snatched it away from him and put it back in the freezer.

“Do I have to be _doing_ something? Bucky’s really strung-out, Clint—”

“So he needs dessert?”

Steve took off his watch and put it up high on a shelf where it wouldn’t be harmed, then rummaged in a cupboard for his largest shallow saucepan, the one with the glass lid. “No, he needs a routine, smartass. He needs things to be predictable; he needs regularity.”

Clint licked the last traces of mascarpone off his fork. “Are you trying to be his friend or his laxative?”

“Don’t make me come over there,” warned Steve, waving the spatula.

His threat was interrupted by Clint’s phone, playing the eight-note theme from _Swan Lake_. “Hey, [Лисичка](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430),” he said, followed by a pause. “Yep, you called it. Mostly. —Tiramisú, actually. Right? …uh-huh. Oh yeah. Yeah, I know. —Okay. [Я Вас люблю](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430).”

He flopped down on the sofa, resting both socked feet on the glass coffee table and ignoring Steve’s twitch. “Nat gives you until New Year’s. Me, I don’t think you’ll make it as far as Hanukkah.”

“I don’t even want to know, do I.”

Clint shook his head. “You really, really don’t. But suffice it to say that we’re _all_ looking forward to Thanksgiving.”

“Thanksgiving,” repeated Steve, with ill-disgused horror.

“Thanksgiving,” Clint agreed. “Annual American holiday. Celebrate imperialist conquest, game animals turned into meat, and simple carbohydrates. Tony’s favorite, obviously.”

“Shit. Shit shit shit,” said Steve, grabbing Clint’s phone over his protests and scrolling around until he found the calendar app. “Clint, that’s in less than a week.”

Clint stretched and looked pleased. “Four days, to be exact, grandpa. Time passes differently when you’re old, I know—”

“I don’t even have a turkey. Much less a Tofurkey. Or a ham, for Sam—and don’t _start_ with me, don’t even.”

 _Ham for Sam_ , Clint mouthed nonetheless, amused, as Steve pressed his fingers into his eye sockets and tried to think how his yearly extravagant friend-feast could be accomplished on very short notice.

“Look, just keep it basic. Everyone brings a thing, we’ll survive the winter. It’s hardly Valley Forge.”

Steve gave him a look. “Last time we tried that, Tony brought a box of two dozen glazed donuts and Nat made a godawful tureen of…”

“…her piping-hot beet and yogurt smoothie. I know, man, that shit is _Soviet_.” Steve couldn’t bring himself to correct Clint. “What if you just _tell_ everyone what they have to bring? And make sure it’s the hard stuff, so then you just make what you want to make, and wear a ruffly apron, like the pretty Disney princess you are.”

“That…might work,” Steve allowed, thinking. “You and Nat, you’re in charge of Tofurkey, because you’re the damn vegetarians.” Clint accepted this with a gracious gesture in triplicate.

“Then,” he continued, gaining momentum, “we put Tony on turkey duty, because you can’t tell me the man doesn’t have a deep-fryer down there in his workshop. Sam can bring his own ham. And that means all I have to make is—”

“The fluffy stuff,” said Clint soothingly. “And you _like_ making all the fluffy stuff. Mashed potatoes, stuffing, macaroni and cheese for Sam. Or spinach soufflé,—maybe your sweet potato casserole with super-tacky church-supper toasted marshmallows on top. You can even make Jell-O and serve it in your finest crystal goblets. Grandpa heaven, Steve—no one’ll need to chew for an hour, it’ll all just melt in our toothless mouths—”

Here Clint had to stop, because Steve was stifling him with a sofa pillow, after which he was ejected unceremoniously (“right, I get it, you wanna spray on a gallon of Axe and brush your teeth like five times”) and Steve went back to simmering puttanesca in peace.

Pie, though. Steve could at least kick in a pumpkin pie.

Maybe Bucky would join them. Maybe he liked pie. Steve had a sudden vision of him slicing it and then flinging it around on blade-point. On second thought, maybe Bucky shouldn’t be allowed near the pie.

•

Pasta, or so it seemed an hour later, was challenging enough for both of them. Steve noticed that Bucky saved his salad for last, like a European, and also twirled the pasta with the fork in his prosthetic hand. It was hard not to stare.

“So how’d it go with Sam,” Steve said, pitching his voice to be extra-casual and conversational.

Not fooled even a little, Bucky glared at him over a forkful of linguini, twisting it unnecessarily and all but grinding a hole in his plate. Steve made a mental note to serve gemelli or shells next time.

(He really wanted there to be a next time.)

“Went fine,” Bucky said, then dropped his fork in frustration. “I just wanna be normal, but the truth is I don’t know if I ever _been_ normal.”

“Normal how,” Steve asked. “Civilian normal?”

Bucky huffed and picked up his fork only to throw it down again. “I guess. Sleeping and showering like regular people. Not getting all lost in my head, all messed up over, over stuff that happened. Just all turned around, mixing up languages and words that don’t, that don’t. That just don’t.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck, all too familiar with words that just don’t.

“I can’t lie, Buck—for the rest of your life other people who’ve served, they're are gonna pick you out, and you’ll spot them too. That never really goes away. But the other stuff—the sleeping, and speaking English—I think you can get there. Gotta let Sam help, though. Go with him to a meeting, see what it’s about. Might help to meet some other vets.”

Bucky sat still, looking down at his plate, and didn’t respond.

Something in Steve’s chest pinched and then shifted. “Here, I gotcha,” he said, and picked up the fork, cutting the pasta into smaller pieces and handing him back his fork without thinking.

Bucky’s fingers weren’t cold, when Steve’s fingers brushed against them, but warm, and less like hard metal, more like silicone. He froze, mesmerized by the sleek touch, then coughed apologetically.

“Just thought you might want a…” Steve trailed off, then stopped.

“Rogers, you are one dumb fuck, you know that,” Bucky choked out, and then they were both laughing, and before Steve knew it he had linguini and red sauce in his hair, and they were scuffling for control of the fork for some reason.

Which logically ended up with Bucky pressing him against the wall, with the dimmer switch for the light shoved against the middle of his back, so that when Bucky leaned in to kiss him, and the fork clattered to the floor, the gallery lighting got turned all the way down, and Steve, hardly able to breathe, let Bucky lead him by the belt through the dark into the bedroom, lit only by the purple lightbulb of the aquarium.

•

“We’re not supposed to do this, Buck,” he gasped, as Bucky dragged Steve’s shirt off over his head, licked a long wet stripe up the side of his ribs to his collarbone and then bit down, making Steve stifle a yelp and sink his fingers into Bucky’s hair (which, yes, was soft, and fine-textured, and kept falling in his mouth, which Steve discovered he really, really did not mind).

“Patient exhibits kissing behavior,” murmured Bucky, nuzzling into the side of Steve’s neck and biting again, less gently this time, into the sensitive spot right below his ear. Steve groaned.

“Yeah, and the neighbor is exhibiting it too, but the neighbor is also _worried_ about the, the patient—” Here he stopped talking, because Bucky’s mouth was on his and he couldn’t think, everything was Bucky, his taste, his smell, the silk of his tongue sliding against Steve’s, his weight pressing Steve down into the feather comforter.

“Not a patient anymore,” Bucky answered, pulling back for a bare instant before he cupped Steve’s face in his hands again, kissing the breath out of him, sliding a knee between Steve’s thighs and pressing his hips in and up, thrusting once, sharply—

The same electric arc seared through them both and they froze there in its between-space for a second, suspended, galvanized, full of want. Steve couldn’t remember ever feeling this way, with his arms full of a piano-playing, rat-chasing, canvas-destroying, knife-dancing madman.

He shoved his hips back up against Bucky’s and rolled them over, threading his fingers through that dark mess of hair and tugging Bucky’s head back until Steve could slide his mouth across Bucky’s throat and draw whimpers out of him in return, tracing his nipples into peaks through his shirt before starting to unbutton it from the bottom up.

“I know you’re not,” Steve whispered, kissing his way back up from Bucky’s narrow waistline, interlacing their fingers. Bucky flinched when Steve gripped his left hand, then watched, dazed, as Steve lifted it to his lips, mouthing across each knuckle, studying his face. “Can you feel that?”

Bucky nodded, looking as overwhelmed as Steve felt. “Good,” he said, low, right into Bucky’s ear, loving the shudder that earned him. “I’m glad, because you’ll be able to feel how hard I am when you—”

— _touch me_ , he would have said, _please God touch me_ , except that Bucky already had Steve's jeans unzipped and both hands inside his boxers, those dexterous strong fingers wrapped around his cock, one hand pulling him to full hardness and slicking him up with the wetness he’d started leaking before they’d even hit the bed, the other fondling the soft skin behind his balls and pretty much rendering any responsible decision-making impossible.

“Jesus wept,” Steve got out, before he couldn’t hold himself up on his trembling arms anymore and slumped down to one side, where he started fumbling for the drawstring of Bucky’s sweatpants, Bucky making shushing sounds and undoing the knot himself, one-handed.

“Bucky, wait,” he tried to say, breathless, though it sounded more like begging when he felt Bucky sleek and hard in his hand; his mouth watered, but he had to know. “Are you sure this is okay, you’re barely out of the hospital and I don’t want to hurt you or set you back when you’re finally getting— _better_ —”

Steve’s voice cracked and went up half-an-octave as Bucky manhandled him onto his back, yanked down Steve’s jeans, and started to lick long strokes from the base of Steve’s cock to the tip. “Neighbor asks annoying questions,” he hissed, and Steve could feel him smiling against the skin of his thigh, before he gave him another bone-shuddering slow-tease lick, swirling his tongue around the head. Bucky propped his head on one hand, giving Steve a chance to catch his breath, and looked up at him, smirking and serious both.

“Come on, Stevie. I may be bent as hell but I sure ain’t broke. If I’m doing this—and I am—it’s 'cause I want to, okay? Being with you makes me feel like I'm almost human again—like a man, not a machine. Not just a soldier. Not just a fuckin’ patient. This—” and here he raked the fingernails of his left hand up Steve’s chest, apparently pleased by the shiver that followed them— “makes me feel alive more than anything. Don’t take it away, don’t say I’m not a person.”

“God, Buck, why would I—you have no _idea_ —get up here,” Steve breathed, and dragged Bucky up to tangle his fingers in his hair again. Their mouths clung together, lips parting only to gasp when Bucky’s upward slide also brought their cocks into alignment, and Steve groaned when Bucky reached down and grasped them both with one hand—Steve didn’t even know which hand, it didn’t matter, his vision blurred except for Bucky’s blue eyes and the bright flush across his cheekbones.

They couldn’t even really kiss now, lips parted and panting into each other’s mouths as Buck worked them over, fast and hot and rough, just the right amount of friction, and too soon he wrenched a cry from Steve—“Bucky, no,” he said, nonsensically; but all that happened was Bucky held him down harder with the other hand, arm braced across the top of his chest, and said against his mouth, “Stevie, yes—you’re gonna come for me, make sure you come so hard and you’re gonna let me, let go for me, come on now babe, so fucking good for me—oh _fuck_ —”

The last few words came out in a gasp as Bucky’s body arched up against his and Steve felt warm liquid all around his cock, making Bucky’s hand slippery and perfect, and he came so hard he had to fight not to scream, bit down on Bucky’s shoulder just because it happened to be there, as Bucky jerked him steadily all the way through his orgasm; and when the white light backed off and he could see again, his arms were twined around Bucky’s neck and Bucky was raking his fingers through Steve’s sweaty hair, over and over, humming something that occasionally had a few words in Russian.

“Bucky,” he croaked.

"[Можно Ваш номер телефона?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293430)”

“Do you like pumpkin or pecan pie better?”

“That depends, I guess.” Bucky traced Steve’s lips with a wet finger; Steve, unthinking, sucked it into his mouth and his eyelids fluttered shut at the sharp-bitter taste.

“Depends on what?” he managed, around the finger.

Bucky grinned at him like they did this every day. Steve wanted to do this every day. “On what I’m _doin’_ to the pie, Captain Rogers.”

 _You’re disgusting_ , Steve wanted to say, or maybe did say; but when he woke hours later in the dark he’d largely forgotten about pie and the purposes to which it should never be put.

Bucky lay curled against his side and was snoring, quietly but with admirable predictability.

Moving as little as possible, Steve pulled the duvet up and wrapped it close and tight around Bucky’s shoulders, and, against all rationality and probability just held him there, lips pressed to his hair, inhaling its scent, listening to him breathe, thinking only: Patient exhibits sleeping behavior. Patient exhibits adorable behavior. Neighbor exhibits totally-in-love behavior.

Then he fumbled around for his watch in the dark, and made a shopping list; because he had a goddamned holiday dinner to plan.

•

As it happened, Tony not only had a secret gigantic deep-fryer, but a bizarrely engineered barbecue rotisserie-type sawed-off fifty-gallon barrel type of thing in which he cooked the ham, basting it in several liters of Dr Pepper, to Sam’s approval.

Sam, in gratitude, accepted being tasked with three pans of yeast rolls, and Natasha was saved from borscht duty by the fact that a) everyone but her hated and detested borscht and b) all she and Clint had to do was buy a Tofurkey, which required zero preparation. Their other neighbors weren't able to make it; Thor had a much-anticipated gig with his death-metal band in Norway ("We're, like, huge over there, man"), and mild-mannered Dr. Banner, the veterinarian who lived across from Nat, had gone to an incredibly boring-sounding academic conference at Texas A&M on flea control in felines. (Steve sort of suspected Banner had something to do with the cat-appearance.)

All of which meant Steve was left alone all morning with the creamy fluffy things he loved to make. And with Bucky, who could not stay out from underfoot, any more than the cat (whom Bucky alternated between calling Regina and Jimi, as in Hendrix), both of them rubbing up against Steve as he moved between counter and stove, both eager for attention and in constant danger of being stepped on and/or burnt.

“You do realize that cooking involves hot things, Regina?”

She looked up at Steve and made a prrtling sound which implied, _no_.

“And you, James Buchanan Barnes—are you aware that the application of heat is an important component of cookery?”

“I’ll apply your heat, baby,” said Bucky, wrapping his hands around Steve’s chest and mock-thrusting into him from behind, and if that was supposed to be funny it backfired horribly, because Steve bent over the counter shuddering, with Bucky mouthing kisses up the sensitive back of his neck into his hairline, and then obviously there was nothing he could do but lose approximately twelve valuable minutes of food preparation time giving Bucky a blow job, after which he sent him back to his own apartment, despite Bucky's complaining that it didn’t smell as nice or have a hot boyfriend in it mincing celery and grating cheese and mashing sweet potatoes and pressing pie crust into a shell.

“It smells like turpentine,” Steve said, “because you’re a painter. Open the window a crack so you don’t faint, and play me something.”

Initially the patient displayed grumbling behavior, but after a few minutes (during which time Steve managed to get the stuffing lightly mixed, packed into a buttered tin, and safely on the middle rack, though Jimi’s whiskers got a little melted in the process), Steve stood wiping his hands on a dish towel and listening, mouth ajar. Bucky seldom sang, and when he did it was almost never in English.

Он представляет это так:  
Едва лишь я пиджак примерю  
Опять в твою любовь поверю...  
Как бы не так. Такой чудак.

 _on predstavlyaet eto tak_  
_edva lish ya pidzhak primeryu_  
_opyat v tvoyu lyubov poveryu_  
_kak byi ne tak takoy chudak_

Nat let herself in, hands empty, and stood next to Steve, listening as the song ended and the last chord rang out in the silence.

“I know that one,” she said, leaning on Steve’s shoulder. He dropped a kiss on her head and went back to the pie crust.

“What does it mean?” he asked, surveying the crimped edge with some pride. (Hey—it’s the little things. No point being a damn military hero if you couldn’t also be proud of your skill as a pastry chef.)

“It’s about an old worn-out jacket, and you’re like the jacket, trying to fix yourself to make someone love you—it’s a really sad song—”

“Wow, what a surprise,” said Tony, pushing past them with a rolling two-tiered waiter’s cart, steam coming out of the covered silver dishes. “A Russian song, sad? That’s crazy talk, Romanoff.”

“We are a tragic and a noble people,” she said, tossing her head, “which is why my contribution to all this pitiful nationalism is the bottle of vodka that’s in the freezer, because we’re going to need it. Especially if Romantic Boy Pianist over there keeps tickling his ivories.” 

Steve fended off her demonstrative tickling, and shook the brussels sprouts in their baking pan to keep them from sticking, adding more maple syrup, butter, and another dash of cayenne.

“Is no one going to make a joke about pianists, because I will,” Tony volunteered.

“No one is making _any_ jokes about Barnes,” said Nat, “because Steve will hurt us, and we haven’t had our pie and vodka yet.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Tony said, stretching out full-length on the sofa (he only took up half of it). “Solo piano pieces from the Romantic era, combined with terrifying weapons proficiency and the love which dare not speak its name. —Does it dare speak its name now? I think it doth. Anyway in _our_ apartment building it speaketh so loudly sometimes that I have to turn up my earphones all the—”

“Clint! Hey, man, glad you’re here,” interrupted Steve, clapping him on the back. Clint beamed as he stuck the unwrapped Tofurkey in the microwave and failed to turn it on. (From which microwave Natasha surreptitiously rescued it, freeing it from its paper, and, after a silent exchange with Steve, placed it on the top rack of the oven).

“Where’s Sam?” Nat said, throwing down the dishcloth she’d used as a potholder. “And for that matter, where’s Bucky—he probably doesn’t even need potholders.”

“We’re here,” said Sam from the doorway, where he had one arm wrapped around Bucky’s shoulders. In the other hand he held a bag stamped _El Bollilo_ —he’d picked up rolls from the panadería instead of baking, which was fine by Steve, because it meant Sam had been able to spend some extra time with Bucky yesterday.

Buck looked into Steve’s apartment, and Steve had gotten good at reading his face: so many people, maybe too many, and Steve preoccupied. Patient exhibits social anxiety. Steve swallowed hard. Nope, not going down like this.

He thrust the pot of macaroni and cheese into Sam’s hands, ordering, “Stir, and then tell Clint to find the breadcrumbs.” He wiped his hands on his apron, pulling it over his head and reaching for Bucky, who still lingered in the entranceway.

“Come here,” he said into Bucky’s hair, pulled back so neatly that for a second he just wanted to mess it up. He tightened an arm around Bucky’s waist, thinking at him: _You’re okay. Secure. Safe. Home._

Bucky turned into him and Steve drew him close, wrapping his arms low around Bucky’s waist and looking out over his shoulder, half-smiling at the familiar chaos of his strange chosen little family: Nat and Tony, squabbling over the remote already, Sam and Clint arm-wrestling for no reason except that Clint always won and Sam couldn’t stand it, Steve with his pumpkin pie and quart of hand-whipped cream (his right arm was killing him, but no one needed to know that, and it was so worth it); and now Bucky, engaging in holiday-party behavior and—

“Patient exhibits gratitude,” Bucky whispered against his skin, and kissed the side of Steve’s neck, soft but with a tiny scrape of teeth, always the promise of it, his eyes luminous and innocent but that bit of a grin, of an edge, of something unhinged and beautiful that way.

“Gratitude, huh?” said Steve, squeezing him and letting him go, for now. “I hope that’s Brooklyn talk for ‘fuckin’ hungry,’ because we got six people and three pies.”

Eyes sparkling, Bucky made an under-his-breath but explicit comment about leftover pumpkin and the potential uses to which it might be put.

“James Buchanan Barnes, you’re one sick puppy. And I’ll tell you something else—next year? _You’re_ whipping the goddamn _cream_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Now, with an [ achingly pretty rebloggable gifset by kylomend](http://kylomend.tumblr.com/post/139857890118/patients-kill-count-top-secret-patient-lies-and)!
> 
> This cracky little piece of holiday fluff is dedicated to [betts](http://bettsfic.tumblr.com), who took the fact that I have a real-life wacky neighbor and made me turn it into fanfic; anything good about this is hers, and the sloppy lazy stuff is all me. Every other word is an adverb but I have no ragrets (and also I had no beta). I'll translate the Russian at some point when I am not full of pecan pie and whipped cream. (Update: the Pу́сский is now hoverable!)
> 
> A few notes about music in the fic: the two Regina Spektor songs are “[Après Moi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbeHq1CLqJ8%22%22)” and “[Stariy Petjak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG4-CVSGPzw).” Prokofiev really did write a [left-hand-only piece for piano](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8rD4QmOqNQ), specifically for [Ludwig Wittgenstein’s older brother Paul, who lost his right arm in World War I](https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/features/paul-wittgenstein-the-man-with-the-golden-arm/)—as did other composers including Ravel and Richard Strauss.
> 
> Thanks to his prosthesis, Bucky plays a reduction of the Rachmaninoff prelude in C# minor, op. 3 no. 2, which is physically impossible by the way, as well as Chopin’s étude op. 10, no. 3 in E major (entirely by coincidence of course, [Alec/X5-494, played by Jensen Ackles, performs the same piece](https://youtu.be/58gl0qRMS6Y?t=11m45s) in the _Dark Angel_ episode “The Berrisford Agenda”). Finally, at one point in the story, Bucky also plays [prepared piano](http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sgrais/prepared_piano.htm)—though I’m guessing he probably just upended the contents of a silverware drawer, or the recycling, into the top of Peggy's upright.
> 
> In conclusion, patient exhibits slash writing behavior! Including—oh fanfic cliché bingo, you are ever-new and fresh—using a song lyric, from Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” (…sort of?) as the title. Happy colonialist imperialism conquest day, Americans! May your deep-fried feast be all that and then some.


End file.
